# Base and Chain

# Detailed Explanation of Hive Interfaces and Their Differences

The @hiveio/wax library, which is part of the Hive ecosystem provides two main interfaces for interacting with the Hive blockchain: the Hive Base Interface and the Hive Chain Interface. Each interface has distinct use cases and functionalities.

# Hive Base Interface

The IWaxBaseInterface is a lower-level, core interface of the library. It mainly deals with basic functionalities and data structures without performing any direct network operations. Here's a breakdown of what it includes:

1. Transaction Building:

   • Provides a constructor for creating transaction builders (ITransactionBuilderConstructor), which allows users to manually build transactions.
   • Allows pushing operations into transactions, validating, signing, and building transactions.

2. Asset Handling:

   • Methods for handling HIVE, HBD, and VESTS in their native asset forms (NaiAsset).
   • Methods to convert these assets and calculate values, such as hbdToHive, hive, hbd, vests, and vestsToHp.

3. Encryption and Decryption:

   • Provides methods for encrypting and decrypting data using keys stored in a wallet.
   • Can securely suggest brain keys and derive private keys from passwords.

4. Miscellaneous Utilities:

   • Methods for working with manabar values, which relate to the user’s resource credits and voting power.
   • Conversion between different transaction and protocol formats.

# Hive Chain Interface

The IHiveChainInterface extends the functionalities of the IWaxBaseInterface and adds high-level network-related operations. This interface connects to the Hive blockchain (or a specific Hive node) and provides more functionalities that require internet access. Here are some highlights:

1. Network Operations:

   • Transaction Builder with Automatic Data Fetching: It can fetch the head block or reference block data automatically, which is crucial for building and broadcasting transactions.
   • Provides high-level methods such as getTransactionBuilder which do not require the user to manually specify block IDs or other network data-related details.

2. API Endpoint Management:

   • Allows specifying and querying the API endpoint URL via endpointUrl.
   • Provides access to multiple pre-configured standard Hive RPC APIs (account_by_key_api, block_api, database_api, network_broadcast_api, rc_api).

3. Extended API Capability:

   • Supports extending the core API with custom APIs through the extend method, enabling custom RPC calls without losing the validation provided by the core API.

4. Enhanced Manabar Calculation:

   • Methods like calculateCurrentManabarValueForAccount and calculateManabarFullRegenerationTimeForAccount which fetch and calculate real-time blockchain account states directly from the network.

# Practical Usage

• Offline Operations: If you only need to work with the transaction data structures and not connect to the network (e.g., building, signing, and serializing transactions for later broadcast), the Base Interface suffices.
• Online Operations: For operations that require real-time blockchain interactions (e.g., querying blockchain state, automatic TaPoS - Transaction as Proof of Stake handling, broadcasting transactions), the Chain Interface is necessary.

In summary, choosing between the two interfaces depends on whether network interaction is required for your blockchain operations. Use IWaxBaseInterface for offline and core functionalities, and IHiveChainInterface for when you need real-time network connectivity and dynamic blockchain data management.